


Rosa Laevigata

by baranduin



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baranduin/pseuds/baranduin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The evolution of Daryl and Carol's relationship before and after Sophia's disappearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  


**One**

It began, Daryl’s special caring, when Carol smashed Ed’s head in with the ax over and over and over until Daryl began to worry she’d never stop. So many years of abuse and so much grief lay behind each stroke of the ax.

 _Good for her,_ Daryl thought. _He was a mean son of a bitch. She and Sophia’ll be better off without him. We all will be._ Daryl felt a strange sensation in his chest while he watched Carol, something that was expanding and clenching at the same time and ended up making a lump in his throat. He couldn’t name it so he didn’t like it one bit.

Just when Daryl figured he ought to step in and tell Carol that enough was enough, that she’d done what she needed to do and done it right, she stopped. The ax supported her as she leaned over its handle, clutching it hard and catching her breath. At least that’s what Daryl thought she was doing and it was true that was part of it. The ax was heavy for her and she’d swung it hard and true. But it was mostly tears that were keeping her hanging over the ax handle, tears dropping on the ground in remembrance of what had been before the violence began, before the world ended and made it all a million times worse.

The realization that Carol was standing there sobbing over the congealing mess of blood and flesh that used to be Ed made that little lump in Daryl’s throat clear right up. Replaced it with a quick flash of adrenaline that would have royally pissed off Daryl if you called it fear, but that’s what it was, pure and simple. A swinging, hacking, out of breath Carol he could handle. A still, sobbing one was a whole different proposition. He cast a quick, desperate look around. Where was Lori or Andrea or even Rick? Someone—anyone—not him?

Eventually Daryl took a hesitant step toward Carol, one hand reaching out … for what? To take the ax? Or to pat her on the shoulder? There was that damn lump in his throat again.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck._

Carol solved Daryl’s problem by suddenly straightening up and, smiling tremulously at Daryl, handing him the ax. “Thank you,” she said in her quiet, tender voice. “I needed to do that myself.”

Daryl took the ax and studied the blade a moment. _Gonna need a good cleaning._

“What do we do now?” Carol asked, averting her eyes now from the corpse on the ground though her eyes were still brimming with tears.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Daryl said, his voice strong, his path clear again. “I’ll take care of him right for you. Get him buried with the others.”

Carol nodded. “Yes, buried.” Her voice trailed off and when she spoke again, her voice made just a wisp of a sound. “Yes, that’s only right. He was one of us.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you, Daryl.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

Daryl couldn’t meet Carol’s gaze that first evening Sophia went missing. Not that he was all that good in the meeting gazes department. Just get you in trouble if you looked someone in the eye at the wrong time. “What you lookin’ at, boy?” The kind of trouble that ended in a whipping. “Get your sorry ass over here. Now,” his father would snarl as he pulled off his belt with a snap. Oh yeah, Daryl was not fond of looking people directly in the eye.

But that evening was worse somehow. He’d failed Carol; he’d failed Sophia. Maybe he would have had better luck on his own, without Rick trailing behind him though he had to admit that Rick had actually held his own. At least for someone without the right training.

He’d spoken his piece about the inadvisability of tracking Sophia in the dark, ducked his head at Carol and kept it ducked the rest of the evening, with varying levels of success.

“Come on, Daryl,” Lori called out to him, “dinner’s ready.”

“Not hungry,” he growled and kept his position outside the perimeter of the group gathered around the camp fire. He hunkered down but didn’t keep still, one knee bouncing nervously up and down. His stomach didn’t keep still either, given the last time he’d eaten was that morning and the day had been strenuous.

The next foray from the group surprised him. He watched as Carl walked over to him, taking careful steps and balancing a plate gingerly in his hands. Now that was simply not fair to send a kid over. Shit, he thought.

When he stood before Daryl, Carl held out the plate. “Carol says you have to eat, Mr. Daryl. Keep up your strength.”

Well, there was a point to that. Daryl took the plate and nodded his thanks. But Carl didn’t leave right away. He stood a moment, fidgeting, toeing the ground.

Finally, Daryl sighed, looked down at the ground, fidgeted with his fork, and said, “What?” His tone of voice was less surly than usual.

“You’ll find her tomorrow. I know you will. You’re the best tracker there is, Dad said you can follow a track that’s invisible.”

Daryl flushed and was glad it was dark outside now. “I’m not bad. Mebbe not the best, but not bad. Now go on, your ma will be wanting you back round the fire.”

Daryl spent the rest of the evening and well into the night prowling the perimeter of the camp, ostensibly to keep an eye out for Walkers but really just because he couldn’t keep still. He wanted the night to be over and to be back in the woods doing what he was good at.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

It was probably the longest speech he’d made since joining the group. Well, other than a few off the cuff expressions of disagreement with other members of the group though, given how many cuss words he’d used, he wasn’t sure those really counted. There were no cuss words spoken when Daryl gave Carol the Cherokee Rose and quietly recounted its story.

Things were going well until Carol started to tear up, but Daryl took a deep breath, looked at the floor, finished up what he had to say and then left as quickly as was seemly. And he needed to. There was something about the way Carol had tidied up the trailer that gave him that lump in his throat like he had the day Carol smashed in Ed’s head to make sure he was really gone and not going to come back to torment her any more.

What Daryl did not mention during his speech about the legend surrounding the rose was that it held a special place in his family history. You could say that this rose had twined itself around his heart as surely as the rosebush outside his childhood home had climbed and clung to the clapboard exterior.

 _“Go and pick me some roses for the table,” his mother said._

 _“All right, mama,” Daryl said, his face brightening._

 _“Watch out for your hands. Put my gardening gloves on.”_

 _Daryl picked five flowers, one for each petal on a single Cherokee Rose. He thought that seemed right and, when he handed the little bouquet to her, his mother smiled and bent down to kiss his cheek._

That had been a good night. They were all there, gathered around the kitchen table, no one was drunk or angry, and the stew (squirrel if he remembered rightly) hot and tasty.

That wasn’t the only time Daryl picked roses for his mother.

 _“Mama, I picked some flowers for you.”_

 _She slapped him, slapped him hard. Hard enough to knock him down and scatter the roses around the kitchen floor in a tangle. Daryl looked up at his mother, who loomed over him, her hand raised and breathing hard, her face red and flushed._

 _She’s drunk. Again._

There wasn’t a next time. Not because Daryl was afraid of what kind of reception he’d get (though he was afraid, just he figured he’d ignore that), but because by then his mother was gone. Run off with some asshole she’d met at the neighborhood bar.

Every now and then, when he was still a young one, young enough to still cry for his mother at night when the house resonated with his father and Merle’s snoring, every now and then he thought he’d pick some roses anyway. Brighten up the place. Thinking ahead to what the response would be from his father and Merle always made him think better of it.

Bringing Carol the rose was the first time that he’d picked one since he was a boy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

Daryl fell three times the day he found Sophia’s doll.

The first time, he managed to get himself up and moving, made it nearly to the top of the steep bank before he fell back. The second time was harder on account of the arrow sticking through his sorry side, so it was actual help that Merle rendered when he materialized and proceeded to torment Daryl in just that special way that older brothers do to younger ones. Admittedly, the Dixon family variation was harsher than most, but it did get Daryl up and eventually to the top.

The third time, oh the third time paid for all.

He was almost out of the woods. In fact, he could see through the gap in the trees to the open fields, so bright green they were. After the shade of the forest, the open space seemed to shimmer with a gold light. A few dozen more staggering steps and he’d be there, freed from everything in the woods that tried to keep him back, standing in that light. He’d be far enough that they’d find him without going to any trouble if he fell and didn’t have the strength to get up again. (Would they come look for him if he didn’t make it out of the woods?) So it was really sort of stupid _(that’s what you get for not paying attention, you dumb shit)_ to trip on a root and sprawl on to the forest floor.

The fall knocked the breath out of him, this third fall, knocked him out for a minute or two. When he came to, he opened his eyes and stared straight up into the treetops, blinking in confusion, trying to remember where he was and how he got there.

For a seemingly endless minute, he thought he was back there in the woods near his home, the place where he was lost for days and no one came to look for him. Then he shook off that old bad feeling. _You got yourself out of that. Do it again, pussy. Do it by yourself. It’s what you do._

He lay for a few more minutes, eyes closed, gathering his strength. When he opened his eyes, there was a pair of eyes looking down on him. The pair of eyes belonged to a face that had a worried crease between the eyebrows.

Daryl’s voice was ragged when he spoke, just one word but that’s all the situation required. “Sophia?”

“Are you going to lie there forever? Get up. You need to take me to my mom.”

Daryl’s mouth fell open. Sophia reached out a hand and Daryl took it in his own. Her hand felt real, a little damp but with a stronger grip than he would have guessed she’d have.

“Come on, now.”

And with those words, Sophia helped pull Daryl up and then he was hugging her close to his side, thinking he’d never let her go. At least not until he delivered her safely to Carol.

After a minute, while Daryl held on to Sophia and steadied himself, he said, “Come on then. Afternoon’s wasting away. Need to get back before dark.”

They moved slowly to accommodate the fact that Daryl was nearly all done in. They walked hand in hand, Sophia’s hand clutching Daryl’s pretty hard. They did not speak, Daryl because he needed all his strength to just keep moving, Sophia because she always had been quiet around him.

It didn’t take too long to reach the edge of the forest though to Daryl it seemed like an hour. But it was probably only around ten minutes. Then they stood just outside the border of the trees and blinked in the sunlight. Sophia let go of Daryl’s hand.

She said, “Thank you for looking for me. I knew you would.”

Daryl turned to respond but she was gone. After the first stunned moment, he shouted her name a few times. But that was ridiculous. She wouldn’t just disappear on him like that after being lost for days by herself. Especially not with the way she held tight to his hand as they walked out of the woods.

He reached back and felt for the doll. It was still there. _Well, at least that’s real,_ he thought and started moving again, through the late afternoon light, toward the farm, toward Carol, where he would have to tell her he hadn’t found her little girl that day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

The moment Daryl recognized Sophia when she stepped out of the barn into the carnage that lay in front of it, he knew he wouldn’t be the one to put a merciful bullet in her brain. Not because he couldn’t do it. He could have, he would have had the necessary strength to do it.

It was Carol who stopped him. He felt her coming, dropped his rifle and caught her as she sped toward Sophia. He caught her and held her hard, both of them sinking down on the ground. Daryl, who flinched from human contact, didn’t hesitate to grab hold of her and then keep holding her. Whether it was to stop her from going to Sophia or whether it was a mute attempt to comfort Carol with his arms, Daryl could not say. Probably a little of both, not that he would have admitted it. If asked, he would have just said, “I had to stop her. She coulda gotten hurt herself.”

Well, there is hurt and there is a world of hurt and Carol was in a world of hurt. Daryl was with her in there, still holding on while she wept an endless stream of tears.

She said only one thing while Daryl held her and the others milled uncomfortably around them: “I should have known. I should have known.”

Daryl murmured something in her ear whenever she’d say that but the others couldn’t catch the words. Maybe there weren’t any.

After a while, when Carol’s tears seemed to lessen, Rick knelt down. “We’ll take good care of her. I promise you.” His voice wasn’t exactly hesitant but, after all, he’d been the one to pull the trigger, it had been on him that Sophia had been lost at all.

Carol raised her head and looked steadily into Rick’s eyes. “Thank you. I know you will.”

For some reason, that brief exchange seemed to mark the end of whatever you wanted to call what had just happened. Slaughter? Genocide? Mercy killing? None of those terms held any consolation to those who had participated or watched, even for the ones who believed fervently that it had been the merciful thing to do.

Everyone dispersed to various parts of the farm, Maggie leading Hershel by the hand into the house, but Carol and Daryl stayed where they were though they were sitting up now instead of leaning over onto the ground. She was still crying and Daryl wondered if she’d ever stop. Though the idea made him sad, it didn’t scare him. He was there now with his arms holding her up and he’d be there whenever she felt the need wash over her.

But they couldn’t sit there forever, and not just because soon the others would be coming back to start dealing with the bodies. _Lot of graves to dig_ , Daryl thought. Aloud, he said, “Come on now. Let’s get you inside the trailer. You can lie down and rest awhile. Come on.” He wondered at the softness of his voice.

Daryl helped Carol up and they slowly made their way to the trailer, Carol’s head leaning against Daryl’s shoulder, Daryl’s arm around her waist, his hand supporting her by the elbow.

The trailer seemed a mute accusation against him. It was still neatly arranged as though it was awaiting Sophia’s imminent arrival.

 _Why couldn’t she have been real?_ As Daryl settled Carol onto a chair, the thought seared through his brain. _She saved your sorry ass and you didn’t do a damn thing to help her. Or her mother._

Just as Daryl was ready to dive into some real soul-searching ass kicking, Carol put her hand on his. This brought him out of his reverie and he looked into Carol’s eyes, dreading what he’d see there but knowing he had to do it. This was the first time since Rick had shot Sophia that he’d looked Carol in the eye.

That little lump in his throat that he’d felt the day Carol took care of Ed with an ax returned now but much larger and harder. When he swallowed, he felt tears in his eyes threatening to spill over.

Carol patted his hand. “I want to thank you, Daryl, for all you did.”

Daryl mumbled, “Wasn’t enough.”

“It was more than anyone else did. Thank you.” Carol reached out her hand and touched a tear that had trickled down Daryl’s cheek. “You did more than anyone. I’ll never forget it.”

Well, now Daryl was just embarrassed. Actually he was more than embarrassed, there were other emotions there but embarrassment was the most bearable not to mention identifiable one. He ducked his head once in acknowledgment of Carol’s words and then looked around rather franticly. No doubt seeking some way to escape.

“I’m all right. You can go now. Actually I think I’d like to be alone for a while.”

Well, Daryl was up on his feet right quick. When he leaned over Carol and patted her on the shoulder, Carol leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. He didn’t flinch from her touch. Then he turned to go.

He started to tell her that he’d be back to check on her in a little while ( _need to go help dig the graves_ ) but something caught his eye and stopped his words. There it was. The little brown bottle with the Cherokee Rose.

He looked back round to Carol. She was smiling at him though tears threatened to spill over again and no doubt would as soon as he left.

He said, his voice hoarse with emotion, “Do you want me to get rid of this? All the petals have fallen.”

Carol sighed and shook her head in that gentle way she had. “No. Leave it. I like looking at it even though the petals are gone. The little gold bits in the center, they look like a crown or a … halo. I’d like to keep looking at it for a while.”

With that, Daryl left to go help the others. He was determined that he would be the one to dig Sophia’s grave and he would be the one to lay her in it and cover her with the warm earth. He would do it (the digging part at least) while Carol sat in the trailer and cried while looking at the halo that was all that was left of her sweet angel.

And that is what they did, each action suitable to each person.

End.

**Author's Note:**

> The Cherokee Rose (Rosa Laevigata) is a mounding bush to about 5 feet, or a thickly foliaged climber to 15 feet with neat, apple-green leaves. In the spring, fragrant, pure white, 5-petaled flowers appear and cleanly drop their petals to disclose golden star-shaped sepals. State flower of Georgia and is linked to the Trail of Tears. [**More about the Cherokee Rose.**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_laevigata)


End file.
